In Luther's Shadow

Martin Luther is best known as a reformer in the history of the church. On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a list of theological disagreements on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany as an invitation for theological debate. This document is known as the 95 Theses. Because of the development in printing, this theological treatise was translated into the common German and distributed quickly. What began as an academic activity soon exposed the Roman Catholic Church's abuse and usurpation of the authority of the Bible for the Christian's rule of faith and practice. Luther himself was impacted by an in depth study of the book of Romans and the declaration that the righteous will live by faith (Romans 1:17). God used Luther to direct others to examine what the Scripture said and to come to an understanding of salvation by faith in Christ alone, by grace alone.

These facts are not a secret. In fact I just reviewed the information on Wikipedia before writing. But what may be unknown is that this reformation is not a thing of the past. For the past two summers, I have traveled with a small group of believers to Croatia. Croatia is a staunchly Roman Catholic country, to the point that one might have to forfeit their job, friends, contact with their family, and safety if they should choose to come to God by faith, with the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith (Phil. 3:9). Ministering in this country has given me a real picture of what Luther was up against. To them salvation is bound up in the sacraments and attendance at the RC building. This situation seems so familiar especially when picking up a biography of Luther. In a realistic way, the worldwide church needs reformers, not new ideas or new methods or new books to replace the ones already written with the same information.

In my experience, the church in Europe is starving for a trained man to teach the Scriptures. Perhaps, our goals are too small. It seems that the American pastor's assitant's assitant might be used as a church reformer, making plain the way of salvation, by God's grace, to thousands.

Perhaps, I have gone too far. Maybe zeal needs to be tempered with wisdom. Pray for the European church, pray for Croatia, consider your calling.

Note the dominance and centrality of the catholic church in this small Croatian town. And this is just one, there are actually two other catholic churches in this small town although out of view of this picture.